Email Re: Voting Out of Town Process

From: J Olague
Sent: October-19-18 4:32 AM
To: Mayor And Council Email mayorandcouncil@viewroyal.ca
Subject: Voting Out of Town Process

First of all, I wish you all success for your return to Council in tomorrow’s municipal election.

My purpose for writing is to express concern about the difficulty experienced by citizens wishing to vote but are out of town both on Election Day and the pre-voting dates. This is the first time Jose and I have been unable to vote due to the timing of our two-month holiday starting Sept. 26th.

My concern started early on and I was directed to an extraordinary electoral volunteer, Ken Sulley, who communicated with me throughout the summer months providing me with information and updates. The difficulty was that the final candidates were not confirmed so ballots would not be ready before we left . He empathized with our situation and just days before our departure called me to suggest I call VR town hall to see if anything could be done but we both agreed it would be near impossible to manage.

Staff at your offices confirmed the ballots would not be ready but they could be mailed to us to fill out and return. We are in a very small town in Spain and international mail is slow and special delivery expensive with no guarantee of the the package arriving back in Victoria on time with the small window of opportunity we had in order to cast our vote. I asked staff if we could authorize in writing a family member to vote on our behalf once the final ballots were available but there is nothing in place to allow for that either and I understand the difficulties such a process could pose.

It’s too late this year but perhaps local Councils could get together and devise an electronic voting system to allow everyone the ability to be involved in the process or at least for starters make one vailable to voters out of town.

Municipal elections are important and I feel helpless not having a voice in this one so I just had to write and offer something for discussion going forward. So many of our friends are also out of the country right now and perhaps voter engagement would increase by having a more available and user friendly system. I’m sure we’re not the first to express this concern and the idea of electronic voting is not new but I’d like to add our support along with other concerned citizens expressing the need for changing the current system to allow every local resident the opportunity to vote in their community whether at home or abroad.

Thank you for your consideration.

Colleen Olague
48 Camden Ave.

Sent from my iPad